


The Prodigal Knight and the Tragic Cupcake

by Findswoman



Series: The Katts and Stann stories [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Humor, Relationship Advice, Romantic Comedy, moping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-12-08
Packaged: 2019-01-30 20:24:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12660774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Findswoman/pseuds/Findswoman
Summary: The female Revan reflects on her feelings for A Certain Sad-Sack Republic Soldier In Her Party. Somewhere along the way, advice is sought... An entry in the JCF OTP Thread Romantic Comedy In Space challenge, as well as an award fic to Raissa Baiard on her wins in the 2016 JCF Fanfic Awards.





	1. One

“Yes? What’s on your mind?”  
  
That’s what he said every time I came to talk to him. Every single time, without fail. The thing is, I’m really the one who should have been asking him that, because “sad little mooka pup” seemed to be the man's default mode of being, Force bless him.  
  
He always denied it, of course—especially when I used the _mern_ -word to describe his attitude. “Moping? I’m not moping!” he once remonstrated, throwing his head back in that charmingly outraged manner of his. I remember, of course, how the two little stray locks on his forehead skipped like baby groats. Whatever hair gel he used never seemed quite able to catch them, and that was fine with me.  
  
And yes, I know I’m the Prodigal Knight and the savior of the known Galaxy and all that, but I’ll be the first to admit I’m susceptible. The fact is, the man was cute when he moped. There, I said it. And it wasn’t just the droopy-bouncy little locks of hair. It was his whole wistful, melancholy demeanor—the way such recollections invariably transformed him from a stalwart Republic soldier to a tragic cupcake (to borrow an expression from my adolescent self). I think that’s why I kept wanting to go chat with him and ask him questions early in our acquaintance. (Oh, how he bellyached about that at first! Though that, in its way, was cute too. And hey, he was arguably the one who started it with the “I’m all ears, beautiful” business.)  
  
He _did_ mope an awful lot. But Force knows he had more reason to than most, and I really shouldn’t make light of it. Carth was one of the Republic's best pilots and staunchest soldiers. Malak and Revan’s betrayal of the Republic shattered his world in an irreparable way. He had to watch powerless as trusted friends and comrades-in-arms turned to the Sith, and finally as his own esteemed commander and mentor—Admiral Saul Karath—betrayed the Republic by handing the Republic Navy’s bypass codes over to Malak.  
  
It was truly a heartrending story. My heart ached for the poor fellow. And yet, at the same time, I flattered myself that I, of all people, could help him rise above his grief and desperation and become, perhaps, a happier cupcake. So I talked to him whenever I could. I think I may even have kissed him at one point, scratchy stubble notwithstanding.  
  
_That_ got my crewmates talking, of course. When I returned to the ship’s lounge afterward, Mission was whispering something in Zaalbar’s ear that was received with a big throaty Wookiee guffaw—and both of them, of course, had their eyes trained on me. Not long afterward I overheard an “observation” from HK-47 about “meatbags” and their "propensity to occupy enclosed spaces together” (it was just the _cockpit,_ for crying out loud!). And then Nastila—I mean Bastila—  
  
But never mind _her._ Never mind _any_ of them. I was off to a good start with my sad-eyed soldier, and I wasn’t about to let anyone else stop me. Our chats continued, and if they included the occasional peck or smooch, well, fine.  
  
And then, one day . . . he brought up his wife.  
  
_To be continued . . ._


	2. Two

Oh yes, Carth had a wife.  
  
Morgana was her name. And I got to hear _all_ about her smile (“lopsided and toothy”), her laugh (“high-pitched and giggly”), the smell of her hair (“there was this beebleberry-green-tea shampoo she liked to use”), and the last argument they had (“I think it was about the ’fresher seat”).  
  
I also got to hear about her last days in the Galaxy.  
  
If the story of Admiral Karath’s betrayal was heartrending, Morgana’s story was even more so. She was killed when Malak ordered Karath to bomb the Onasis’ homeworld of Telos IV. Carth had been deployed at the time (which Morgana had not been happy about, but that’s another story). His task force was called to Telos after the bombardment, but they arrived too late: by then she was gravely injured, and their son, Dustil, was nowhere to be found. (Yes, it turns out they had a son, too . . . it never rains but it pours, doesn’t it?)  
  
Anyhow, Morgana was bloody and broken and near death as Carth held her in his arms and screamed for the medics. No medics came. She died in his embrace.  
  
Now, how could such an experience _not_ be burned into the man’s memory forever? How could any being in this Galaxy live through such hell and _not_ emerge from it a sadder, gloomier, more melancholy cupcake? I confess that I could almost see the scene as he described it—was I sharing his memories the way I had shared Bastila’s dream about Revan and Malak? Who knew.  
  
But one thing was for sure: the man was still grieving for his wife, and he was not likely to stop any time soon. And knowing that changed everything about how I related to him.  
  
It’s not that I was jealous of this Morgana person. Okay, well, maybe a little, since she _was_ awfully lucky to have had this cupcake for her very own. It was more that I began to despair of ever being able to help him rise above his grief, or whatever it was I said I had hoped to do. Losing your military commander is one thing—but losing your spouse, and possibly your child, too, is another entirely. I could fill the former void at least partly, just by being captain of the _Ebon Hawk_ and the leader-type-person of whatever expedition we were on (and I confess that in those days I wasn’t entirely sure). But the latter? No way. I felt it would be presumptuous for me to even try.  
  
So I thought it prudent to back off. Sure, we would continue to fight and quest side by side as faithful comrades. And of course I would listen if he ever wanted to talk, because that’s what I would do for any of my crewmates. But there would be no more tête-à-têtes in the cockpit. It would be a wrench, but it had to be done.  
  
And then . . .  
  
* * *  
  
What happened next I should have seen coming. One day, after I had returned to the _Hawk_ from a particularly grueling excursion over the sands of Tatooine with my two most particularly grueling colleagues (you can guess who they are . . . one has a fancy hairdo, one’s a droid), I caught a brief conversation between Carth and Mission in the lounge. “Hey, Mission,” Carth was saying. “Do you happen to have any spare computer spikes?”  
  
“Yeah, sure. How many do you need?”  
  
“Just—just a couple.”  
  
“Sure, here you go.” She gave him a few from the pocket of her vest. “What for?”  
  
“Oh, uh, just . . . the comm panel in my quarters has been, um, fritzing.”  
  
“Really? What’s it doing? If you want I can come take a look.” (And she certainly could have. That girl was a whiz with any kind of technology.)  
  
“No—no no no—it’s all right, I-I-I think I can manage—b-but thanks, Mission.”  
  
“No problem.”  
  
I thought nothing of it at the time, of course. The _Hawk_ was by no means a new ship, and its communications systems did indeed have the occasional tendency to, as he said, “fritz.” But when he asked Mission for another computer spike the next day, and then another that afternoon—that’s when I began to wonder. And when I heard furious astromech-droid bleeping from behind his door, interspersed with exclamations like “No, T3, that’s _not it!_ ”—that’s when I really started to suspect something.  
  
Was Cmdr. Carth “Sad Mooka Pup” Onasi, of all people, trying to _slice into the ship’s_ _communications system?_ And _why?_  
  
I found out one fateful, torrid Tatooine afternoon, after coming back from that dreadful business with the GenoHaradan (remind me never again to agree to anything that requires me to go alone out to the Dune Sea). The others were all clustered around the closed door to Carth’s quarters, whispering to each other: “What’s he doing?,” “How should I know,” “Do you think she knows?,” “No idea,” “GRRRAHRRR,” and so forth. All the while, a blurred hodgepodge of static, electrical crackles, and indistinct speech-like noises was emanating from behind the door.  
  
I came closer. The strange sounds behind the door increased in loudness and intensity with each passing second, as did the murmurs of my colleagues. It was when I heard “Prediction: The master is going to be most displeased” that I decided to speak up.  
  
“All right, HK. Better tell me what I’m going to be ‘most displeased’ about.”  
  
“Apology: Master, I should not have been so presumptuous. Given the near-impossibility of correlating meatbag emotional reactions with any degree of certainty—”  
  
“Yes, yes, yes, fine. What’s going on here?”  
  
“Repsonse: Master, we are concerned about Commander Onasi’s recent behavior. He has not emerged from this room since you left for the Dune Sea. Rumor: he may be attempting to slice into the ship’s communications system.”  
  
_Well, tell me something I didn’t already know,_ I almost said. But I didn’t. “Any idea why?”  
  
“Hypothesis: We believe he may be trying to retrieve a comm frequency from the restricted section of the memory banks. To what end, however—”  
  
“YOU GUYS! LISTEN!” Mission’s shrill voice cut in. “HE’S GOT SOMETHING!”  
  
We all fell silent and listened. Behind the door, a steady, high-pitched _beeeeeep_ now pierced the static and crackling. There was a cry of “Great job, T3! You did it!” Then the beep gave way to static, and then to a voice—a gruff, older human male voice that uttered a curt “’Myello?”  
  
“Uh, yes, hello . . .” Carth began. “Is this Mr., uh, Stanislauff, uh, Err-zeeww . . . anks . . . kowski?”  
  
And then I froze in sheer horror, for it dawned on me exactly what this tragic cupcake was doing.  
  
He was comming _my dad._  
  
_To be continued . . ._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morgana Onasi (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Morgana_Onasi) is, in fact, Carth’s wife, and the story of her death is officially established. Her name is not mentioned in the game (it first appears in one of the later guidebooks), even though Dustil’s (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Dustil_Onasi) is, which I always found a bit odd. Carth does mention recalling her laugh, her smile, the smell of her hair, and their last fight in the course of the game dialogue, though the details given here are purely my own.
> 
> The beebleberry (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Beebleberry) is canonical, though I first learned about it from my esteemed fellow fanfic writer Raissa Baiard.
> 
> Mission Vao is indeed one of the Ebon Hawk’s foremost tech whizzes, adept at slicing into computers, picking locks, disabling mines, and suchlike.
> 
> The GenoHaradan (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/GenoHaradan) side quest in KOTOR involves this sort of secret society of bounty hunters and assassins who manipulate Galactic events by, well, the usual bounty-hunter- and assassin-type means. Whenever the player character talks to any of the representatives of the organization, she must do so alone, without any companions accompanying her, and the side quest does indeed involve at least one showdown in Tatooine’s Dune Sea.
> 
> And what of the character Carth is coming? He is an OC who was first introduced in my short story “Just Ask Dad; or, Talking Things Through on Taris.” For now that is all I shall say about him.


	3. Three

“Yup, Stanislauff Rzewanczkowski here,” came the familiar, gruff voice over the comm speaker on the other side of the door. “What can I do for ya?”  
  
Carth cleared his throat. “Well, Mr. Revan-chowski . . .”  
  
“Rzewanczkowski.”  
  
“Mr. Rzhev-ahnch—”  
  
“Aw, forget it, just call me Stann. An’ y’know what, young fella, when you comm someone, it’s considered good form to tell ’em who you are.”  
  
“Oh, uh, sorry,” stammered Carth. Even from behind the door he sounded more than a little nonplussed. And who wouldn’t be? My father tended to have that effect on people. “Well, I’m—I’m Cmdr. Carth Onasi, Republic Navy, formerly pilot of the _Endar Spire,_ and I wanted to ask—”  
  
“Republic Navy? _Endar Spire?!_ Now just _waaaaait_ a minute . . . don’t tell me you’re that _soldierboy_ who’s taken up with my daughter!”  
  
Just then a few different things happened at once. A sort of gulping whimper—or a whimpering gulp, one of those two—was heard from within the room. Mission and Juhani giggled. Zaalbar guffawed. As for me, I sighed and grumbled something like “Oh, for Sith’s sake, Dad!” Bastila looked at me for a moment but decided (thankfully) that I hadn’t said anything after all.  
  
“Well, Mr. Rzhev—I mean Stann—I do in fact have the immense, um, privilege of knowing your daughter, and that’s precisely what I wanted to—”  
  
“Now you look here, Cmdr. Darth Onassis.”  
  
“C-Carth. Carth Onasi.” Poor little thing. I could almost see the sweat drops trickling down his forehead, adding a new gleam to those two gel-glistening little locks of hair.  
  
“Onasi? Hmm. I used to know some people named Onasziszyszkiewicz. Don’t know if you’re related to ’em. But anyway. You look here, Cmdr. Carth Onasi. If you’re lookin’ to woo my li’l Kattsie”—and I know I “DAD!”-ed at this point for several reasons, but mainly because that’s what he used to call me when I was _five,_ for the love of Waru—“you gotta know that she’s not just _any_ girl.”  
  
“Oh, believe me, Mr.—Stann. I—I—I know that well. Sh-she has saved my life more times than I can count and she is _absolutely_ one of the most _remarkable_ beings I have _ever_ come across in my _whole, entire_ —”  
  
“She said you needed to shave.”  
  
“Ah. Yes. So I do, so I do.” Force bless the man. He was the personification of grace under fire. “At some point I was going to head over to the market in Anchorhead and pick up some shaving soap, but—”  
  
“ _Shavin’ soap?_ So, you got fancy tastes, eh? Hmph. Back when I was workin’ on the factory floor at Aratech I was lucky if I could use my overtime pay to pick up a can o’ BarbaShave. If you think you can impress _my daughter_ with hoity-toity stuff like _shavin soap_ —”  
  
“No—no—no no no of course not that’s not it at all—”  
  
“—then you’re _kshhh_ in’ up the wrong tree. She doesn’t give a womp rat’s rear end for fancy pudu like that. Nope. What you gotta do is show her that you’re the real thing. You gotta open up to her. Talk to her. About what you’re feelin’. About what _she’s_ feelin’.”  
  
“Well, that’s just what I, uh, wanted to ask you about.” Carth exhaled with relief at finally being able to get a word in edgewise. “She’s not letting me. I ask her what’s on her mind, she just says,  ‘never mind.’ We used to chat all the time between missions, but now she’s just . . . ignoring me.”  
  
“‘Chat all the time between missions,’ eh? What about? Hyperspace corridors? Navigational readouts? The weather?”  
  
“Oh, this and that. The war, the Sith, Malak, Revan . . . but . . . you see, I think I got her jealous. I shouldn’t have talked so much about my wife—my _late_ wife, that is,” he hastened to add.  
  
What I haven’t mentioned is that my assembled colleagues had been listening to this entire conversation in rapt silence. At this piece of information from Carth, a new burst of gasps, growls, and murmurs arose. I felt my own unease increasing. Was that accursed cupcake of a soldierboy really going to start blabbing all about our private conversations to my _dad?_  
  
“Okeeday, then, Cmdr. Snazzy.”  
  
“Onasi.”  
  
“Oh, right, Onasi. First, my condolences about your wife, an’ I mean that. I know jus’ what that kind of loss is like, an’ I can’t think of anythin’ that hurts more.” (He was talking about my mom’s death in my teens, of course, and I found it hard to hold back a tear just hearing him mention it.) “But about Katts—here’s the thing you need to know about ’er. She absolutely positively _hates_ being number two. At anything. You want to win her back? Then you gotta let her know, without the teeny-tiniest smidgen of a doubt, that _she’s_ number one to ya now.”  
  
“I know, Stann, I know,” Carth sighed, his voice nearly wavering. “It’s just going to be . . . hard to do that until I get revenge on the people who . . .  
  
“Well, I sure understand, though y’know what they say about revenge an’ anger an’ the dark side an’ all,” my dad continued. “But back to Katts. Back when she was in school, there was this boy in her class, Normelius Pavanthwaite, who she kinda . . . had a crush on, y’know.”  
  
Oh no. It was bad enough that Carth had started spilling the beans about our chats. Did Dad now have to start in with his embarrassing stories about my youth—and right within earshot of all my crewmates, too? A few giggles were already percolating through the group. I fumbled in my pocket for my override keycard, suspecting it would soon be needed . . .  
  
“But here’s the problem. This Pavanthwaite kid wouldn’t shut up about the girl he’d just broken up with. Well one day he was goin’ on and on about it to Katts, an’ she just got sickantired of it all, an’ raised her hand an’—”  
  
That did it. I slammed the override keycard into the door slot. The metal door whizzed open to reveal Carth sitting there at the comm panel, gripping the arms of the chair in something close to shock, with T3 plugged into a scomp link nearby. As I entered, Carth spun around and sprang from his chair, gasping a barely audible “Katts!”  
  
“T3, back to your station, please.” He rolled off, and I addressed the room’s remaining two inmates in icy tones. “Hello, Carth. Hello, Dad.”  
  
“K-Katts . . .” Carth gasped again. “Y-you . . . _h-heard_ all that?”  
  
Poor little cupcake, he was near tears. But I was going to let him have it all the same.  
  
“Why yes.” I crossed my arms. “As a matter of fact, I _did_ hear you gabbing on about our _private_ conversations _to my father._ And _you,_ Dad.” I extended an admonitory finger toward the holographic image. “How many times have we talked about this? It’s bad enough that you never miss a chance to remind _me_ of all my bizarre teenage shenanigans. Can you please not do it with _other people too?!_ ”  
  
Carth lowered his face and shuffled his feet like an indecisive bantha calf. Then the hologram spoke up.  
  
“Aw, c’mon now, princess. You’re bein’ too hard on the fella. He meant no harm.” He paused for a moment, and his voice softened. “He’s mighty fond of ya, y’know. An’ who can blame him?”  
  
I turned to Carth and glowered. Or at least I tried to, because what I saw when turned in his direction melted all my resolve to glower, glare, or anything of that kind. He was fidgeting with his hands, his lower lip was quivering like a hypothermic Blob, and I could have sworn I saw a tear—yes, a real, actual tear!—trickle down his nose and disappear into his shadow of a beard.  
  
He looked so pathetic and vulnerable standing there, and so entirely like a scared, homeless mooka pup, that I simply hadn’t the heart to unleash the screed I had been working up in my mind. Instead I placed a hand on his arm and said, “You OK?”  
  
“Yes, I think I’ll be fine.” He heaved a sigh that was halfway between a sigh and a sob. “You must think I’m incredibly stupid.”  
  
I smiled. “Not at all. I just think you’re outnumbered by Rzewanczkowskis.”  
  
The hologram of Dad smiled proudly. And, after a moment or so, Carth cracked a smile too. He and I looked at each other. I took in his impeccably gelled hair, the two stray locks, the shadowy, slightly-more-than-1700-hours beard that adorned the lower half of his face. I took in those deep, warm brown eyes, gazing at me so steadily, so trustingly. I took in those strong, broad shoulders that had interposed themselves so many times between me and danger. All was silent around us.  
  
And then Dad’s husky voice cut through everything like a vibrosaw.  
  
“So what are you two waitin’ for, anyway? KISS, ALREADY!”  
  
“Oh, DAAAAD! For the love of— _fine!_ ”  
  
So Carth and I kissed. Just lightly, just gently, because I didn’t want it to be too much of a shock to the poor darling. Plus, of course, he was still scratchy. But at least there was the future prospect of sweet-smelling shaving soap.  
  
The barrage of cheers and claps from the doorway (along with one stray “Get a room, will ya?” from Mission) reminded me that my crewmates were still observing the scene, so we disengaged. “Now, how about I let you recover for a bit?” I said.  
  
“Yes.” He sank back into the chair. “I think that would be a good idea.”  
  
“All right, you do that. See ya later, cupcake.”  
  
“Cupcake? Morgana used to call me that.”  
  
I stuck out my tongue, gave his two stray locks a playful flick with my hand, and left the room.  
  
_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stanislauff Rzewanczkowski: Once again the reader is referred to “Just Ask Dad; or, Talking Things Through on Taris.” The pronunciation is explained in the notes following that story, and you’ll see a mention of the name Onasziszyszkiewicz too.
> 
> BarbaShave: Fanon. An obvious and not very clever portmanteau of Barbasol and Burma-Shave.
> 
> kshhh: The sound made by mookas (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mooka).
> 
> “like an indecisive bantha calf”: A totally random simile. I have no idea whether indecision is typical to juvenile banthas or not.
> 
> Normelius Pavanthwaite is an OC and totally unimportant.
> 
> Wookieepedia links:  
> Aratech: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aratech_Repulsor_Company/Legends  
> Blob (yes, this turns out to be a bona fide GFFA species name): http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Blobs  
> Waru: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Waru

**Author's Note:**

> Don’t worry—neither I nor this fic condone adultery! Yes, Carth’s wife exists, but she’s dead by the time of KOTOR. More on that soon.
> 
> 100% of credit for the expression “tragic cupcake” goes to JCF user Trip, who described Carth Onasi that way in the JCF Lit IRC chat a few years back. It is pretty much the perfect description of the character, so thank you, Trip! (And whaddaya know, cupcakes do in fact exist in the GFFA.)
> 
> “I’m all ears, beautiful” is indeed one of the first things Carth says in the game to the female player character. And then not long after that he talks about how he doesn’t trust anyone but doesn’t want to talk about it (the reason, of course, being the betrayal, etc., etc.). Go figure. I get the feeling romantic comedy wasn't Drew Karpyshyn's forte either. :p
> 
> And finally some Wook entries, including character names, since this is an unfamiliar era to many:  
> Bastila Shan: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bastila  
> groat: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Groat  
> HK-47: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/HK-47  
> Malak: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Malak  
> Mission Vao: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mission_Vao  
> mooka: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mooka (Hat tip to @Kurisan for introducing me to these. The use of “pup” for their young is just my own extrapolation.)  
> Saul Karath: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Saul_Karath  
> Zaalbar: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Zaalbar


End file.
